


Two Weeks

by orphan_account



Category: Dragon Age, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Banter, F/M, big bro cullen, blackwall actually isnt in here but whatevs, some minor spoilers for the blackwall romance, this is my first work on here so go easy on me brothas, trevelyan and cullen are like bro and sis
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 13:17:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4223157
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Two weeks.</p>
<p>     It’s been two weeks since Blackwall up and went straight out of her life without a word, and Aristaja Fjell Trevelyan is losing her fucking mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Two Weeks

**Author's Note:**

> As you may have guessed from the summary, this one shot takes place after Blackwall disappears from the Inquisition during his romance. :3 This is what I imagine was my Inquisitor's reaction so yup. Enjoy!

Two weeks.

    It’s been two weeks since Blackwall up and went straight out of her life without a word, and Aristaja Fjell Trevelyan is losing her fucking mind.

    “Maker’s breath!” Cullen yelled, barely having the mind to jump out of the path of the airborne glass vase heading his way as he stepped into the Inquisitor’s quarters. Its cool surface grazed his ear before colliding with a gilded wall in a mess of shattered pieces, a beautiful white rose, and a loud _crash!_ that he was sure could be heard from floors below.

    The Inquisitor grinned madly. “That may just be payback,” she said, her smirk widening when Cullen threw her a bewildered, questioning look. Her sarcastic tone and playful words might’ve fooled someone else, but Cullen knew the Inquisitor gave up much of her hidden thoughts and emotions through body language. It was hard for her knuckles turned white from grasping onto her desk tightly and stiff shoulders to escape his notice.

    “Oh, would you let that _go_! You _know_ what happens when I’m not on lyrium; harsh words are exchanged, wooden boxes are thrown at walls where you happen to be standing, nothing that can’t be easily amended,” he replied, openly smiling back at her. The only words he and the Inquisitor had exchanged over those two weeks were simple, curt pleasantries and all-business reports; banter with his friend was much appreciated.

    The Inquisitor laughed, pulling her hands away from the desk and slightly slackening her posture as she walked over to the shattered vase. As she walked, though, she caught him looking at her knuckles, still pale though quickly regaining color, and, Cullen then saw, her nails that were jagged and bloody from being bit down to the nailbed.

    “You noticed,” she mumbled, locking gazes with him for a moment before crouching down to pick up the fallen rose. She stood up, rose held delicately in her hand and the fragments pushed up against the edges of the wall, in time to see Cullen nodding with a concerned look on his face. She sighed, a sad smile barely upturning the corners of her mouth. “Gah, of course you did. I’m too easy to see through.”

    “That, and I don’t think hurling glass vases across your quarters at unexpected visitors is a habit of yours,” he said, crossing his arms over his chest with a small grin. “At least, I _hope_ it’s not.”

    The commander was glad to see the amused look on her face return, if even for a second. The Inquisitor then turned on her heel and walked out to one of the balconies overlooking Skyhold before promptly returning to her quarters with another glass vase, this one with a bright yellow flower in bloom with petals waving gently in the breeze. She took out the flower and replaced it with the white rose, pushing the vase to the edge of her desk and gazing at it fondly before turning to Cullen and offering him the yellow flower unceremoniously.

    “Are you _flirting_ with me, Inquisitor?”

    “Oh, don’t flatter yourself. Sera gave that to me the other day and I still can’t figure out if a swarm of angry bees is going to come pouring out of it one day. Hence why it was outside and why I’m giving it to you,” she said, chuckling when Cullen instinctively dropped the flower to the floor and glared at it warily as if it had burned him.

    “I do hope your future suitress doesn’t react to pretty flowers the same way you do,” she joked, but Cullen caught the subtle crack in her voice. She sighed when he gave her a serious look that said, _“Spill. Now.”_

    “Blackwall gave it to me,” she said quietly moments afterward, her dark green eyes not meeting his. It took him a moment to realize she was talking about the flower.

    “Does it…” he asked tentatively, as if walking on broken glass.

    “Yes. It has to do with - with him.”

    “What’s happened? You two seemed in good straits the last I saw you together.”

     She laughed mirthlessly. “He’s gone, Cullen. Without a trace. Left the Inquisition under the cover of night. It's been two weeks.”

    “ _He left the Inquisition?!_ You told us -”

    “ - that he was out helping eliminate darkspawn on the Storm Coast and mourning his old friend, yes. I’m sorry.”

    “Why did you lie?"

    “We have bigger problems, more important things to deal with than wasting Leliana’s scouts searching for my renegade lover,” she replied firmly, looking to him with stressed, worried eyes. Cullen wondered how the subtle bags under her eyes have escaped his notice until now. "I told you that because, _Maker_ , that's what I hope he's doing."

    “Have you yourself tried tracking him down?” he asked in a soft tone of voice, uncrossing his arms with a sympathetic look.

    “For the first few days, yes. I checked the shack in the Hinterlands where we first met, the abandoned Grey Warden encampment where his old friend had died… and then I had to stop,” she said, whispering the last part with glassy eyes that looked straight down at the wood of her desk. When she looked back up at him, her eyes had lost the sheen of suppressed tears. “He knows that the Inquisition takes up too much of my time, that everything I do is to help it along the road of success. Tearing up Ferelden and Orlais in search of him is simply not an option, and he - he knows that, Maker _damn_ him he _knows_.” Aristaja punctuated her sentence with her fist slamming against her desk.

    Cullen sighed quietly and carefully stepped around her desk, and before she could object, he enveloped her in his arms. She froze for a second, surprised, before returning the gesture, burying her head in the crook of his neck and wrapping her arms around him. It should’ve felt strange or oddly intimate, but it didn’t. If anything, it felt… _familial_. Like they were brother and sister.

    "I don't know if he's ever going to come _back_." With those hoarse, grief-stricken words, Cullen could hear all the resolve slipping away from her, as if someone had turned on the faucet and let it flow. She clutched onto him, her slim fingers digging into his back, desperate to stay anchored to anything sturdy enough in the storm of her emotions. Sharp inhalations of air and her quiet whimpers were the only thing breaking the silence.

    The Inquisitor suddenly jerked away from Cullen after a minute, looking mortified. “I - _Maker_ , I’m sorry,” she said, a deep red sweeping up from her neck to her forehead as she realized she basically sobbed all over the commander of her armies. “I didn’t mean to -”

    “No harm done, Aristaja,” Cullen replied, smiling despite himself. "I will inform Leliana. Her scouts will find him in no time, I swear it."

    The Inquisitor’s eyes lit up, a soft grin gracing her features.

    "Thank you, Cullen. It means the world."

 

    *~*~*~*

 

    Lying alone in her bed with the duvet abandoned somewhere on the floor and curled into a ball with her knees pressed underneath her chin, Aristaja Fjell Trevelyan had never felt more alone.

    The Inquisitor was accustomed to strong arms holding on to her as she slept and scraggly facial hair tickling the back of her neck and suppressed snores and sleep and logic-deprived conversations in the dead of night. Now she felt utterly cold, missing the comforting warmth and titillating banter from her Warden lover.

    She smiled sadly as a memory of Blackwall half-heartedly trying to bat her hands away as she tied two identical red ribbons to the two ends of his beard arose in her mind. She could remember the grin on his face and how his words had been tinged with amusement as clear as day. Blinking away tears, she consoled herself and held Blackwall’s Warden-Commander badge to her chest.

    “Should I expect any unpleasant surprises upon walking up the stairs?”

    The words of a certain commander pulled Aristaja out of her reverie. She shot up into a sitting position, sliding the badge underneath her pillow and put on what she hoped was a convincing enough grin for Cullen.

    “You’re just going to have to find out, now aren’t you?” she teased, rolling her eyes when she saw Cullen cautiously stick his head above the railing of the stairs, checking her surroundings for anything that could cause him serious harm if hurled at him within Aristaja’s reach, before breathing out a relieved sigh and leaving his shield on the floor.

    "You brought your shield?" Aristaja raised an eyebrow.

    "Could've sworn you would've hit me with a frying pan this time. I wanted to come prepared," Cullen said, leaning against the railing casually.

    Aristaja laughed. "The last time I went through the kitchens, there was some sort of brawl going on between two angry servants. It was a clean, fair fight, until one of them grabbed a frying pan and slammed the other across the head. The poor man went out cold, bringing down half of the breakfast they’d prepared down with him. No one realized I was there until I was rolling around on the floor laughing,” she said, stumbling over her words as she tried to hold back from giggling. Cullen laughed along with her, a grin stretching over his face. “Just imagine; Corypheus, out like a light because of a frying pan! Imagine the songs they’d sing!” Aristaja continued, her hands flailing about in enthusiasm, before turning back to Cullen. “But, I doubt you came here so we could discuss the potential of frying pans as weapons against rowdy servants and possibly even Venatori."

    “I’ll admit, it’s not the conversation I was expecting to have,” Cullen said, but suddenly his amused look fell, to be replaced with a more concerned one. “I came to… er, check up on you,” he said, wringing his hands behind his back with a sheepish look, hardly daring to meet the Inquisitor’s eyes.

    “I’m _fine_ , Cullen. Really,” she replied forcefully.

    Cullen frowned. “Are you, though? The Maker can only guess how you manage to handle all of our problems - do you ever give yourself any time for yours?”

    “I can handle my own perfectly fine,” she said again, though by his look Aristaja could tell Cullen wasn’t buying it.

    “You’re so selfless. You’re always putting others before yourself… it’s incredible how easily you put aside your own needs for another’s.” Cullen muttered at the ground, before staring up at his friend with dead-serious eyes. “It will be your downfall.”

    “I… I know. _Maker_ , I know,” was all she said in response, staring down at her bed, her knuckles turning white when she clutched onto the mattress.

    “Blackwall was selfish to leave you.” Aristaja flinched and made to reply, but Cullen held up his hand, instantly quieting her. “He isn’t an oblivious man. He knew it would break you to not know where he was, and yet he left anyway.”

    “I…” Aristaja trailed off, her eyes wandering elsewhere. 

    Cullen shook his head, stepping closer to the Inquisitor and sitting on the edge of her bed. “I - I apologize, Inquisitor. I didn’t come here to argue with you. I just…” the commander broke off, at a loss for words. “If there’s anything - anything at _all_ \- I can do for you, just say the word,” he said sincerely.

    Cullen was surprised when Aristaja looked up at him with a faint red dusting across her cheeks. “There _is_ one thing you can do for me,” she said, hesitantly. “Er… with Blackwall gone, I’ve been sort of alone and…” she trailed off, confused at the faint traces of red slowly spreading up Cullen’s neck and his raised eyebrow, before realizing the implications of her words and widening her eyes and covering her mouth. “No, no, _Maker_ no! That’s not what I’m asking at all! I - _no! Stop looking at me like that!”_

    “I know, Inquisitor,” Cullen said, smirking at the still sputtering Aristaja. “I just find it quite hilarious how easily riled up you are.”

    “I despise you.”

    “Is that any way to talk to the person so generously offering you help?” Cullen said with an innocent tone, chuckling at the playful glare the Inquisitor was giving him. “But, in all honesty, what is it you need?”

    “Do you promise not to laugh at me?” Aristaja asked timidly. Cullen laughed.

    “No.”

    Aristaja rolled her eyes. “Do you know the - er, the stuffed nugs that we pass out to the children?” she mumbled awkwardly, smiling despite herself at Cullen’s amused expression.

    “ _That’s_ what you want? What for?” Cullen teased, delighting in the Inquisitor’s uncertainty. “So you can rip it to pieces, cackling evilly, and throw the nug’s remains at Leliana as a way to cheer yourself up?”

    “Nothing so drastic, though I’ll have to make note of that idea,” she replied, winking at him despite the fine blush spreading across her face. He grinned, crossing his arms over his chest.

    “So am I to tell the servants that the Inquisitor requests a plush stuffed animal and return to your quarters straight afterwards without at _least_ telling Varric?” he asked, a pleading undertone in his voice. Aristaja laughed, raising an eyebrow.

    “I took you to be better than a gossip, Cullen.”

    “I am merely providing our resident storyteller with more material. Don’t you want him to portray Your Worship as accurately as possible?”

    “Oh, get out. Just get me the damned stuffed nug and keep your mouth shut,” she said, shooing him out with her hand, smiling despite herself.

    “No promises,” he sing-songed, standing up and giving Aristaja a wide grin before walking down the stairs, chuckling. Aristaja sighed exasperatedly, none too eager to hear of the rumors Cullen would inspire in Varric by tomorrow.

    At least things were starting to look up.

    Aristaja looked to the floor to see Cullen’s forgotten shield, and an evil grin spread across her face as an idea popped into her head.

    Oh, things were _definitely_ going to start looking up.


End file.
